Hex vs. Grid

Your 'quadilateral' building doesn't have to have 'straight' walls drawn with a 'ruler'... *shrug* you could have the walls follow the lines on the hex map.

Well, there's certainly no reason your game couldn't use half-hexes all the time. Full hexes will just have the same terrain in both sides. And the split between the two halves need not always be parralel. They could split the hex in any of the three ways, as needed. That would divide your space into units as needed, and allow the flat-sided buildings you crave.

Why exactly do you feel the need to use hexes? Have you considered staggered squares instead? Then again, that might introduce a whole new set of problems...

-Darke

Staggered squares? again... intrigued...

Picture a brick wall. However, instead of the bricks being lenthwise rectangles, imagine theme as squares. That's a staggered square pattern.. Any one square will have 6 squares adjacent to it just like a hex. In reality, a normal square grid also has this property but there are no 'corner to corner only' touches. Each adjacent square will touch the home square by at least half a square. All the fun of hexes without the hexes. Keep in mind, the staggered pattern may be just as scarey if not more scarier to non-gamers than it's hex counterpart.

-Darke

All this assumes that the wall has zero thickness.

If it was fatter the wall could take up a significant fraction of the hexes it crosses, say 1/3, so you are only left with 1/3 hex to try and stand in, which doesnt look so awkward.

This would only use a negligible amount of the edge of the other (non bisected) hexes (10% ?) where minis could comfortably stand.

Building corners occur on the hex vertices (optimal) or you could sacrifice a whole hex if neccessary.

I personally am fond of Penrose tiles, and a penrose-and-a-half will solve these pesky problems for you, creating a double grid:

Penrose and a half:

Combo Grid:

This should allow you sharp corners, and a hex grid to boot. You won't need the double-grid everywhere, but simply allow all pieces to occupy a single quadrant.

I think using square grid is OK if you take some consideration inthe rules. The biggest problem is generally diagonal movement or distance calculation.

The best solution is to count diagonals as 1.5 movement ( the exact official number is 1.4 ) in this way, units won't move faster in diagonal.

Calculating range can be done the same way. You count each square and when you make a diagonal movement you add 1.5.

Fianlly, you just have to set if the final movement must be round down or up to the max movement. For example, can a 5.5 movement be legal for a max of 5 movement.

If you use an hexmap of squares ( like in the old Romance of the 3 kingdom games on the NES and SNES ), building will fit correctly on verticals but you will get half squares(hex) on horizontal lines.